Please, just don't talk to me anymore

High School Game

You know that theory that says if you say something out loud then it won't happen? Like "break a leg". I'm telling you that theory is a load of crap.

So, here's the story... during halftime of the JV game a parent walks up to me and asks, "can I ask you about a play I saw in a game earlier in the season. I don't understand what happened." Sure, no problem.

His explanation goes like this; a short scrimmage kick (i.e., a punt) crosses the expanded neutral zone (more on this is a minute), hits a player on the defense, bounces back over to the kickers side, where they gain possession of the ball, advance, and is tackled short of the line to gain (i.e., they did not make a first down).

"They gave the offense a first down. Was that right?", he asks. I confidently said, "yes, because the defense touch the ball. If they had not touched the ball then the refs were wrong." He believed me. I kinda, more-or-less, believed myself. I thanked the guy for bringing this up, because now it won't happen.

Of course, it did.

Ok, class, now stay with me on this one. (Rule 5-1-3-f) When a scrimmage down ends with the ball in the field of play or out of bounds between the goal lines, a new series is awarded to: F) The team in possession at the end of the down, if the defense is the first to touch a scrimmage kick while it is beyond the expanded neutral zone...

The F) means there are 7 conditions where a new series is awarded; A through G.

Expanded neutral zone? For reference, the normal, none expanded neutral zone is the line of scrimmage. The neutral zone for a scrimmage down is as wide as the length if the football (rule 2-28-1). The NZ may be expanded following the snap up to a maximum of 2 yards behind the defensive line of scrimmage... (rule 2-28-2)

OK, so when MAY it get expanded? You are not going to find some nice paragraph that explains this. Basically, the Expanded NZ exists to eliminate needless flags. For example, rule 7-5-12 says, "ineligible offensive players may not advance beyond the expanded NZ on a legal forward pass play before a legal forward pass crosses the neutral zone in flight...

The point is if a ineligible offensive lineman is within two yards of the original line-of-scrimmage, this is not a foul for ineligibly receiver down field. The same holds true for the punt I described above - ball needs to cross the ENZ.

Does this make sense? If the defense touch the ball beyond the ENZ, (and this can mean some poor kid gets hit on top of the head when he is not looking), whichever team gains possession of the ball will have a new series.

Now don't get cocky and think you understand this yet. Rule 6-2-6 says, the touching of a low scrimmage kick by any player is ignored if the touching is in or behind the expanded neutral zone. IGNORE this touching.

Hold on... there's more. Rule 6-2-3 says, any offensive player may catch or recover a scrimmage kick while it is in or behind the neutral zone and advance...

But....

Let's go back to (Rule 5-1-3-f) When a scrimmage down ends with the ball in the field of play or out of bounds between the goal lines, a new series is awarded to: C) the defense, if at the end of the forth down, the ball belongs to the offense behind the line to gain.

See why this expanded neutral zone thing is important? A mere six feet (two yards) makes the difference if the defense touches the ball and the offense gains possession.

So, please, someone talk to me about lotto numbers because I need this to really, really happen!

Stop Asking Stupid Questions

Let' see, it's 11:15PM on a Saturday night and I'm blogging. Yea, I know. The kid are finally asleep... so is the wife. I guess I can finish the 2nd of three HS football test.

I'm not sure about your association, but mine uses open books now. But we have three, 100 question tests, so its not like you can just slack off. Some questions are straight out of the rule book, others are from the case book, and others are well crafted and force you to look in several places in the rules. An example would be a play scenario where you have to account for which teams was last in possession, who had "clean hands", dead-ball fouls on plays with a double foul, with PSK involved. Or something like that.

But as I mentioned last time, some of these questions are just not well thought out. For example, one of the questions on this years test is "A PSK foul can only occur after the kick crosses the line of scrimmage." I hate these kind of questions. Follow me on this.

First, the foul occurs when and where the foul occurs. PSK is simply an enforcement spot for a foul that occurs under certain conditions during a Scrimmage kick down. In Rule 2-16-2-h PSK requires a foul by "B", during a scrimmage kick plan (and here is my point) in which the ball crosses the expanded neutral zone.

So, to cross the expanded neutral zone also means the must cross the line of scrimmage. But, what does the question designer on my association test want? If you take the literal description out the manual, then the question is false. If you read it like someone who 'thinks', then the answer is true. The kick cannot cross the expanded neutral zone with out first crossing the LOS. So, yea a PSK foul can only occur after the ball crosses the LOS... duh.

But I still think it is a trick question and the answer is false because... well I really don't know why. A better question would have been "When K commits a foul behind the LOS the enforcement spot is the PSK spot". At least this version really tests you knowledge on what a PSK foul is and when it occurs.

But whatever. I know what to do when it happens in a game. I wouldn't care so much, but you have to get a score of 90+ in order to work post season and there are always about ten of these bullshit type questions. Or they use double negatives. Those really suck too.

College scrimmage start next week, but do I know when and where... no.